How did the imperatives of the Cold War shape gender roles and society's
expectations of women?

Though the 1950s was in many ways a period of conformity with traditional gender roles, it was also a decade of change, when discontent with the status quo was emerging.

Popular culture and the mass media reinforced messages about traditional gender roles, consumer culture, and the Cold War ideal of domesticity, but the reality of women’s lives did not always reflect these ideals.

African American women faced particular difficulties in the pursuit of postwar material abundance and the “American dream.” Popular portrayals of ideal femininity and home life ignored the lives of minority women and families.

Explanation:

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